Study Skills

LD@3: Study Skills Diagnostic: a multi-stakeholder approach

Published: 27/01/2022 - Reading Time: 2 min

Categories: Events | Study Skills

February 22 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm Workshop content and aims We will present an overview of our process of involving students as partners in the development of our academic and study skills service. Alongside course tutors, library colleagues, and e-learning developers, we designed and implemented an online diagnostic tool for students to complete which assessed their competence in a range of Academic Writing skills (critical writing, structure, and using evidence) and Harvard Referencing. Upon completion of this diagnostic, students were directed to select which workshops they would attend in a mini-conference format; options available depended on how students performed in the diagnostic […]

Team of people discussing study skills

LD@3 Assessing the impact of study skills sessions

Published: 22/06/2021 - Reading Time: 2 min

Categories: Events | Study Skills

Session abstract:  In an attempt to evaluate the impact of study skills sessions on students’ marks a descriptive statistics approach was developed in 2017. This approach focusses on subject-specific study skills sessions embedded in the curriculum that are related directly to individual assessment tasks. The descriptive statistics analysis is based on establishing mark categories, and exploring chronological changes in the proportion for each category. Over the past three academic years, this approach has been used to analyse data on students’ attainment at all levels of study and across various academic subjects. Colleagues from academic schools welcome the change from discussing […]

Notebook with the words Study Skills on the cover

LD@3 Essay Writing Activity Cards for Creative Disciplines

Published: 09/06/2021 - Reading Time: 2 min

Categories: Playful and Creative Learning | Events | Study Skills

Session abstract:  The Study Skills team at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) in collaboration with a Graphic Design staff and students have developed a set of activity cards to help scaffold students’ essay writing from planning through to editing. These are evidence-based activities drawn from in-course subject-specific and open, cross-disciplinary workshops undertaken at AUB and are translated into principles-based activities. They are designed to provide frameworks for academic research, writing and style based specifically in creative disciplines. Students work in pairs or small groups by following a set of prompts within a selected stage of the writing process. The activity cards […]

Illustration of a person writing an essay

#Take5 #58 From ‘Text’ to ‘Teapot’ to ‘Tinkerbell’ – Supporting Students in their Subjects

Published: 25/03/2021 - Reading Time: 11 min

Categories: Study Skills | Take5

This #Take5 post is brought to you from Kendall Richards and Nick Pilcher of Edinburgh Napier University – who presented on this topic at the fabulous ScotHELD Winter 2021 Conference. Who we are – and why we wrote this blog We are Kendall Richards and Nick Pilcher. We are lecturers at Edinburgh Napier University. Kendall is in the School of Computing and Nick is in the Business School. Kendall has worked in Australia and the UK in Academic Advice roles, Nick has worked in Scotland in EAP and support roles. We have a recent paper entitled ‘Study Skills: neoliberalism’s perfect Tinkerbell’ which […]

Picture of Tinkerbell

#Take5 #57 Using the jigsaw technique for collaborative online learning

Published: 12/03/2021 - Reading Time: 5 min

Categories: Playful and Creative Learning | Study Skills | Take5 | Technology Enhanced Learning

Puzzling the pieces This #Take5 is brought to you from Katharine Stapleford who has solved this year’s Covid-19 problem – how to get students working (and reading) collaboratively when studying online and at a distance. Here’s Katharine: Background I teach on the MA Digital Education programme at Leeds University. The programme is 100% online distance learning and recruits students from all over the world. The programme adopts a flipped learning* design, whereby each weekly unit centres around an interactive student-led synchronous seminar with some asynchronous pre- and post-seminar tasks. Why the jigsaw technique? The underlying principle of the jigsaw technique, […]

jigsaw puzzle illustration with four characters carrying the jigsaw

LD@3 – Create a meme to build digital skills

Published: 27/02/2021 - Reading Time: 2 min

Categories: Events | Playful and Creative Learning | Study Skills | Technology Enhanced Learning

Date / Time: Thursday 18th February – 3pm Location: Online via Collaborate Presenters: Arielle Redman, University of York Description:  Processing, understanding, and remembering information is often aided by combining images with text or keywords. These are the two essential ingredients of the majority of memes, which are, by definition, widely shared and enjoyed. Come prepared with a piece of research or key idea you have heard, read, or written. Enjoy a whistle-stop tour through the history and purpose(s) of memes, what makes one successful for your chosen audience, where memes have been used malevolently, and how you can positively contribute to making the internet […]

The word Meme in magazine letters pinned to a cork notice board. Meme is used to describe a piece of information or an element of culture in various media.

#Take5 #51 The best way to develop a compassionate pedagogy?

Published: 22/10/2020 - Reading Time: 11 min

Categories: Study Skills | Take5

“I was asked to deliver a ‘skills’ session to a group of second years. I went into the room – the students were dotted about in ones, occasionally twos. They all had their coats on. They did not know each other’s names. These students had not arrived in that classroom. Arguably, they had not arrived on the course.” (Member of staff) Why is this an important area to cover? Not only is it important ethically to develop humane and compassionate teaching spaces, it is vital to the notion of facilitating the dialogic co-construction of knowledge; for active, deep and meaningful […]

Image from Education for Social Justice Framework – colourful hands raised.

#Take5 #46 The Best Way to Shake Up Academic Publishing?

Published: 30/07/2020 - Reading Time: 7 min

Categories: Academic Literacy | Study Skills

This #Take5 is brought to you from Dr Chris Little. Chris is a Learning Developer and Teaching Fellow in Keele University’s Institute for Innovation and Teaching Excellence and serves on the editorial board of Innovative Practice in Higher Education. Chris writes about the journal – with a special focus on their new poster section. Publish Your Poster Presentations with Innovative Practice in Higher Education Innovative Practice in Higher Education (IPIHE) is an independent online journal currently, and very kindly, hosted at Staffordshire University. The journal is an opportunity for any colleagues in HE to share their innovations in delivering teaching […]

Dashboard of charts

#Take5 #41 The best way to lay the foundations of success?

Published: 26/03/2020 - Reading Time: 11 min

Categories: Research Methodologies and Data Collection | Study Skills | Take5 | Technology Enhanced Learning

This #Take5 post is brought to you by Helen Hewertson … who works at a large post 92 UK University. She is the main person responsible for the day-to-day running of the foundation programme in Humanities and Social Science and is module leader for and teaches on all the core modules. There is a cohort of between 40-100 students per core module which cover topics like study skills, critical thinking, research methods and digital literacy.  Helen’s student’s drawing Start here “The foundation entry degree was probably the best thing I did. After being out of education for so long (15 […]

Helen’s student’s drawing

#Take5 #39 The best way to surf the reflective wave?

Published: 30/01/2020 - Reading Time: 9 min

Categories: Education | Study Skills | Take5

This month’s #Take5 blog is brought to you from Ian Johnson, Learning Development Tutor, University of Portsmouth. Ian discusses an interesting, dynamic reflective process that makes reflection move beyond performance to something useful and meaningful. Reflective Practice – ‘Surfing the Wave’ Teaching students how to reflect in writing can be a thorny issue for disciplinary staff and learning developers alike, and one that often raises more questions than answers. Why is reflection so often uncomfortable for students? In theory, freedom from the dreaded academic mantra ‘never write in first person’ could be so liberating, but more often, it feels like […]

Context dependence - Waves
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